Brian Epstein wrote:

"...  What the phenomenon being reported, however, is the melting of Greenland ice, which is indeed taking place at a rate and to an extent never before recorded."

Maybe that is because it had never been recorded before.
I had done some research on this in the past

Maybe that is because it had never been recorded before. I recall doing
some research on this subject before and posting it to this forum.

A review of Denmark's official websites brings up very little on
Greenland - but I did find
http://www.dmu.dk/1_Viden/2_Miljoe-tilstand/3_natur/biobasis/index.htm
It states:
    "Climate change modellers agree that polar regions are particularly
exposed to global warming.  At the same time, the ecosystems in these
regions are highly sensitive to climate change.  Therefore, some of the
earliest and most pronounced effects of global warming are expected in
the Arctic.
     Despite this, only very few long-term studies on the dynamics of
Arctic ecosystems exist, and no such studies took place in Greenland
until Zackenberg Ecological Research Operations (ZERO) started in
central Northeast Greenland in 1995.
     BioBasis, the biological monitoring programme within ZERO, is run
by the National Environmental Research Institute and financed by the
Environmental Protection Agency under the Ministry of Environment and
Energy, Denmark.  The goal of BioBasis is to monitor the dynamics of a
large variety of organisms and biological processes in the local ecosystem."

Note that they talk in terms of anticipated conditions (i.e. "are
expected"), they are not talking about current conditions.  And research
has only just begun, so how can any conclusions be drawn without data?
(What a silly question!)  If the ice cap was melting I think there would
be some statement to that effect.

Continuing my search of Danish government websites I find "Change in
Arctic Marine Production"
( http://www.dmu.dk/lakeandestuarineecology/camp/ ).  They likewise talk
of expectations:
"Global warming is expected to affect the rate of ice-melting and
thereby light availability in polar regions.  Investigations concerning
the responses of production, consumption, and degradation in Arctic
coastal marine ecosystems to future changes in temperature and sea
ice-cover will be carried out.  The aim is to study the regulation of
primary production, and the effects of alterations in primary production
on secondary production and bacterial recycling of nutrients.  This will
be accomplished through detailed laboratory and field studies of primary
and secondary producers and sediment processes in Young Sound, Northeast
Greenland.  The project is being effected as a collaboration between
several scientific institutions and is expected to add new knowledge of
the mechanisms regulating production and consumption in Arctic marine
areas, and to provide an extensive data-set for use as reference in the
future."

 From that same Danish report:

"Studies of world-wide temperature records compiled over the last 100
years have revealed an average global temperature increase of 0.6C
(Hansen & Lebedeff 1988).  Coupled ocean-atmosphere models predict that
global warming will cause a further temperature increase of several C
over the next 50-500 years.  This temperature increase is predicted to
be most pronounced in the Arctic, where it is modelled to be
approximately twice the global average (Hansen et al.  1988, Manabe &
Stouffer 1994).  Even a warming up of 1-2C is expected to cause dramatic
reduction and thinning of Arctic ice in summer (Manabe et al.  1992,
Barry et al.  1993).

Studies of detailed satellite records have indicated a shortening of the
sea-ice season, especially in the Sea of Okhotsk, the Eastern Arctic
Ocean, the Barents Sea, and off the north coast of Russia and the east
coast of Greenland (Gloersen & Campbell 1991, Gloersen et al.  1992,
Parkinson 1992, NASA 1996).  However, it has been suggested that an
increase of global temperature and a resultant increase in ice-melt may
serve to freshen the surface waters of the convective gyres of the
Greenland and Iceland seas, to a degree that cooling even to the
freezing-point is insufficient to initiate convection (Aagaard & Carmack
1989).  This may cause the global thermohaline transport to alter, and
reduce the transport of warm water to the North Atlantic region,
resulting in a local cooling of the area and a subsequent increase in
ice-cover (Hkkinen 1993; Rahmstorf 1995; Rahmstorf 1997).  Furthermore,
analyses of two ice cores drilled in central Greenland (Johnsen et al.
1992, Taylor et al.  1993, Dansgaard et al.  1993) and of deep-sea cores
(Bond et al.  1993) have revealed large, abrupt climatic changes of at
least regional extent during the last glaciation, suggesting that the
climate in the North Atlantic region can alter rapidly, perhaps even
within few decades."

Note again "models predict", " increase predicted to be", "modelled to
be", "expected to cause", etc.  But they also say that it could result
in more ice, not less.  They aslo spoke of "sastellite records"  - and
just how long have satellite records been available?  The data from just
a few years ago showed that they had only just started to study the
glaciers in Greenland, so how can they now be making statements (by the
way, who exactly is making these statements) about historic trends?

Brian may be right in that "the melting of Greenland ice, which is
indeed taking place at a rate and to an extent never before recorded."
 But that does not mean that it is to an extent never before occurring.

Chuck Dolci